The Bulldogs Smile Through Pain

The Bulldogs Smile Through Pain

GuyWhoLikesSport

Every offseason two of my mates and I do a ladder bet.

The stakes of the bet aren’t huge, third buys first a parma.

This year we made the bet after Jamarra Ugle Hagan’s shooting star offseason, the Bontempelli, Weightman, Jones and Treloar injuries, and Luke Beveridge coaching into the last year of his deal.

We had the Dogs 13th, 15th, and 10th.

We all predicted that, after an offseason from hell, they’d have a season from hell and complete the annus horribilis like the 49ers just did.

In truth, the off-field year from hell has continued.

Their second-best player Sam Darcy got injured, Jamarra’s return is getting unlikelier, and neither Treloar nor Weightman have played.

The only problem with the Year from Hell Theorem is that Beveridge and his Bulldogs have smiled in the face of adversity and Bevo’s veneers have been blinding throughout.

Now 4-3 after beating the premiership fancy Giants, the Bulldogs have faced Theon Greyjoy hardship with Chris Traeger positivity — and are winning because of it.

While they have fewer big names now — with Jack Macrae, Bailey Smith, Caleb Daniel, and Ugle-Hagan all gone — the Dogs are becoming the elite list they were hyped to be in recent years, only without the stars.

Instead of a glut of slow and famous people, they now boast improved small-forward talent, a balanced inside-out midfield, and taller players who have clear roles.

The Dogs are now as balanced as anyone, and they can play Bevo-ball the way it’s meant to be played.

The three key pillars of Bevo-ball are contest, transition, and front half footy.

The Allen-key to this list is Marcus Bontempelli, the best contest player in footy. But now he has balanced support around him with contest animals Tom Liberatore and Matt Kennedy.

Around them, there’s actual juice with Ed Richards, Ryley Sanders, and Joel Freijah.

When you add the highhalf-forwards James Harmes and Sam Davidson – who come up to provide extra numbers around contest and push hard forward – you have a skilled, hard running, explosive midfield that is top-4 in clearance, contested ball and stoppage scoring.

That run and weight of numbers has also shown in their elite transition game, which Bailey Dale is the engine of.

They are top-5 in every transition stat, including being second in taking the ball from defensive half to score.

Those pillars have meant that the Dogs are annually a high-disposal team and this year is no exception.

The final pillar is forward half footy — and the Dogs dominate that too. They’re eight in front half-scoring, fourth in time in forward half and third in inside-50 differential on the year.

They’ve been so good because their pressure and ground ball game is elite even without Cody Weightman and with changing key-forward personnel.

While Aaron Naughton isn’t marking as many as they would like, he is never outmarked. His aerial competitiveness has helped the Dogs lead footy in forward 50 ground ball gets, with Rhylee West leading the league.

This is all classic Beveridge stuff. He’s always wanted to be a high-possession, elite contest team that transitions hard and locks it deep.

He now has the horses to do everything.

In recent years, my criticisms of the Bulldogs have been twofold.

First: the high-possession game felt like a vehicle to get Jack McRae SuperCoach points rather than having much end-game.

That’s changing now with more speed and better use of space.

Second: the Bulldogs have played their game come hell or high water, barely reacting to what their opposition is doing — like John Malkovich in Rounders, in a different movie to everyone else.

Over the last two games that’s changed.

Two weeks ago against St Kilda, the Dogs understood that the Saints run their game through Sinclair and Wanganeen-Milera’s kicking. The Dogs sat on both and held each to his fewest kicks for the season, choking the Saints run.

Last week, they knew that the Giants hunt the corridor. As soon as they get in there, they treat it like the Mario Kart boost pads and they unleash the tsunami.

Finn Callaghan is the key player here, with running patterns similar to what basketball calls a rim-runner, sprinting from goalpost to goalpost through the middle.

They generally try to spread defences in the back half and have Callaghan in the centre to provide linking run between the three lines.

The Dogs packed the corridor and forced GWS to become like Essendon in transition, especially in the third quarter, making them move the ball around the wings.

Callaghan had his worst handball receive game of the season, and the Dogs punished them any time GWS tried to bite off a kick into the guts.

That’s two weeks in a row of forcing teams to play left-handed.

This isn’t a team surviving a year from hell – it’s a team that’s building something dangerous.

With a flexible list, a dangerous game-style, and a coach who keeps evolving, all I can say is this — my friends and I were various shades of wrong.